Blog Posts by Dave DiMartino

A day later than usual in posting this week's new releases blog, true—but can I be blamed for losing sleep over this week's past excitement?

First came the exciting news that both Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban would be accepting slots as judges on the fantastic television show American Idol!

Then came the even better news that Shakira and Usher would be filling in for Voice judges Christina Aguilera and Cee-Lo Green during its next season!

Then came the climactic news that my local Jo-Ann Fabrics is now offering an even larger assortment of fabric, sewing, quilting, scrapbooking, knitting, crochet, jewelry and craft items!

Oh yeah! Then I fell out of my car and passed out for two days!

P!nk: The Truth About Love (RCA) I've decided that despite all my misgivings about what P!nk represents—a colorful mouthpiece who essentially functions as a semi-front person for an admirable batch of plugged-in contemporary producers,

It struck me late last week, upon hearing who would be the artists making an appearance on the sad, tired, and now more dismal than ever MTV Music Video Awards, that I cared about absolutely none of them.

I realize that's not a bold statement. I mean, really, aside from the few people who still care about the sort of music that MTV was honoring—most of it not only forgettable, but fascinating for the inevitable, record-setting brevity of the celebrity it will enjoy—who really thinks Nicki Minaj will even be remembered in 10 years?

If she had any inkling of the astounding number of young people of music-buying age who have absolutely no idea of what she actually sounds like—not looks like, but sounds like—I believe it would depress the hell out of her.

I mention this only because this week's album releases feature a surprisingly diverse, rich array of artists—all of whom are musicians, rather than television celebrities, and all of whom, despite the inevitable dwindling record sales

I'm so torn! Between last weekend's great Budweiser Made In America Festival, featuring Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, and lots of beer, and this week's coming Music Video awards, from prize-winning music video channel MTV, who has time to actually listen to this week's hot new releases?

I've got to figure out what to wear!

But don't get the wrong idea! I'm not going anywhere—certainly not to the award show itself! I just like to dress up when I watch TV! In case anybody, you know, stops by to say hello!

Of course…that hasn't happened for a few months now! But with this new Matchbox Twenty album blaring through the speakers I've put up in front of my house, and these great new pants I just got at Costco, it's got to be just a matter of time!

And guests willing to stop by and discuss the week's great new albums can also enjoy a heady serving of croissants, muffins, and sheet cake, all courtesy of the fabulous Costco bakery!

I'll be the tall guy sitting in the back yard with the cat on my lap!

Speaking purely as a writer, I find it interesting that, after all these years of blathering about music, I need a certain…oomph…to begin the actual process of writing!

And so it is that tonight, only moments ago, I grabbed an unmarked CD—I have a lot of them—put it in my player, pressed "play," and, with no idea of what I was about to hear, heard what appeared to be a live audience, fading in and loudly chanting the word "Horslips!"

The CD was a reissue by the Irish rock band of the same name, mind you, from their 1980 live album The Belfast Gigs—but not really knowing that upon first listen, I must say that hearing an enthusiastic crowd chanting what appeared to be the words "horse lips" was stimulating in a very strange way!

Bummer that it was that it was an actual band name instead of the horrifyingly confrontational album opener I'd been hoping for—I was envisioning about 4 or 5 potential less-than-attractive artists, to be polite, about to start their respective sets—for 20

Some intriguingly mid-level reissues, sturdy returns from well-known "name brand" artists, and a batch of mildly OK new albums from artists with questionable longevity make this the most exciting album release week since last week!

Uniformly blessed with decorative covers—all of them, fascinatingly, square in shape—the discs can not only be admired for their looks but, for the adventurous among us, played!

Still, as diverse as this batch of new releases may be, they all share one other thing in common! Were you to play them on your stereo very loudly late at night, call up random people, and then hold your phone up to your stereo speakers, they probably wouldn't enjoy it!

The kicker? I suspect these may ultimately be deemed the best albums of all time!

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Last Of A Dyin' Breed (Loud & Proud) A new album by Lynyrd Skynryd? Featuring a pair of tracks called "Last Of A Dyin' Breed" and "Ready To Fly"? I'm glad irony completely escapes me! But this band's classic

Greetings from the East Coast, as I pen this blog post near Cape Cod, Massachusetts—not my normal southern California abode—and attempt to recap all that is best about this week's new album releases!

One hopes my normal critical acuity has not been dulled by a steady flow of lobster rolls, quahogs, steamed clams and people who—let's face it—have the funniest accents ever!

Luckily this week's artists are all of them—each and every one—stellar, iconic, and quite possibly my favorite artists of all time! So even if their new albums stink, it's cool! They're great!

Except for the bad ones!

Dead Can Dance: Anastasis (PIAS America) Back in the day—and to be specific, it was March 17th, 1984—I was visiting a record store where I once worked and overheard some conspicuously trendy customers asking a clerk friend if they stocked any Dead Can Dance records. He said, "Do you mean CAN?" They scoffed and dismissively said no. Luckily the store was hip and had one! (There only was one

[Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images]The following conversation with late Grateful Dead guitarist Garcia took place in the dressing room of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum prior to his band's performance on February 24, 1992. It was to be part of a large feature on the band for a weekly entertainment publication but, oddly, that publication's editors decided to forgo the feature before the piece was ever written. To commemorate what would have been Garcia's 70th birthday, here Y! Music presents that 1992 conversation in full.

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It's been interesting hearing your new song "So Many Roads," particularly because it seems so unusually autobiographical.

Well, it's [longtime lyricist Robert] Hunter writing me, from my point of view, you know what I mean? We've been working together for so long that he knows what I know. The song is full of references to things that have to do with me. It's got a line in there about "Winin' Boy," which is an old Jellyroll Morton tune. Back when I was a folkie, I spent a month working on the

Boy, am I bummed out!

Like most of us, I've been breathlessly anticipating watching the Olympics this year! I'm completely into athletics, I like uniforms, and sometimes cool music is featured! And this year, what with the Olympics being in London and all, word was that the opening ceremonies would include the finest musical tribute of all time!

But unfortunately, as you may have heard, NBC—the television network that's broadcasting the event here this year—decided that rather than boring the USA with dopey music far beyond our ken, they'd replace it all with some idiotic Ryan Seacrest interview and hope we wouldn't notice the difference!

So a word to the wise: If you want to hear the semi-reunited Clash sing "We Represent The Lollipop Guild," Coldplay jamming on Herman's Hermits' "No Milk Today" and Adele dropping jaws worldwide with her unexpected Curved Air medley, check out YouTube for the random BBC feeds kindly posted by sympathetic foreigners who completely feel our pain!